Posted February 06, 2018
high rated
TL;DR: After sitting on it for something like a decade and a half, I'm releasing my General MIDI SoundFont to the public. I hope you enjoy it.
You can download it here: http://pub.dotbalm.org/misc/UHD3.7z
WHAT?
The digital equivalent of sheet music, MIDI was commonly utilized by the video games of yesterday. MIDI doesn't have any sound information in it per se, therefore the quality of the samples utilized by your MIDI synthesizer determines the quality of your MIDI sound as much as the composition itself.
To put it simply, a SoundFont is a library of instrumental sound samples, instructions and parameters which, when loaded by a compatible synthesizer (either implemented in hardware or in software), will dramatically change the sound of MIDI output. It follows that your choice of SoundFont can have a noticeable impact on your classic video game experience. Especially if you're an audiophile like me.
WHY?
By using a custom SoundFont in conjunction with one of the many software synthesizers available to your system (for most people this will be built into your favorite engine for running classic games such as DOSBox or ScummVM), you can enjoy a completely different league of music quality in your classic games.
HOW?
This depends largely on whether a particular game is being loaded through DOSBox, ScummVM, etc. Thus, I won't go into much detail here. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of tutorials on the GOG forums on how to do this in various situations, and I'm happy to help if you still have questions.
WHY NOT TIMBRES OF HEAVEN / [MY_FAVORITE_SF2_HERE]?
Timbres Of Heaven, while an overall great sounding SoundFont, is unfortunately NOT very adherent to the General MIDI convention. Some of the volumes between instrument presets are highly inconsistent, resulting in an uneven and often overpowering sound. Also, tremolo has been added to certain instruments in a manner which was not in any MIDI standard I'm aware of, and often clashes badly with many real-world examples (such as the soundtracks to many Sierra games) where the composer would have added their own tremolo in the MIDI itself. This gives me the impression it was intended more for studio use than for gaming or other standard GM playback. Timbres Of Heaven is also ~376MB in size, which must be loaded into RAM to utilize. On resource-constrained computers (or certain SF2 compatible hardware synthesizers), this isn't ideal.
In contrast, UHDv3 is just 64MB uncompressed, which fits cleanly on most older SF2-capable hardware synthesizers, and isn't too RAM hungry on resource-constrained computers either. But perhaps most importantly in the context of video games, it sticks much more closely to the Roland GM standard utilized by many classic games. I think it strikes just the right balance of consistency and quality that compliments the original compositions we all know and love.
WHEN?
Right now. Go download it if you want. Just don't distribute it commercially, please.
HISTORY
As a kid I loved video games, and had a special appreciation for their unique soundtracks. Sierra stood out especially, as perhaps the first to embrace the impressive but relatively high-dollar Roland MT-32 synth module. I wanted an MT-32 badly as a kid in the 80's and early 90's, but sadly at $700 it was far out of reach. So, like most other regular Joes, I had to suffice with PC speaker bleeps and, a bit later on, low quality OPL support via SoundBlaster.
Fast forward to the late 90's / early 2000's and the EMU10k1 had become a thing. Creative Labs released a commodity-priced sound card based on this innovative sound processor, the SB Live!, and I was fortunate enough to acquire an early model at a trade show. Among other things, the EMU10k1 supported SoundFonts natively. This gave your average audiophile access to high quality MIDI playback which was on par with pricey studio synths. Unfortunately, the best SoundFont that shipped with the SB Live! was an 8MB GM set that, while far superior to the quality most people expected from MIDI, largely failed to impress. Thankfully homebrew SoundFonts caught on in music and audiophile communities, with a slew of SF2 sound banks circulating. The one I liked best at the time was a set called "Unison".
Around the same time I'd finally acquired my longed for MT-32 for something like $45 on eBay. At that point it was over a decade old and seriously outmoded, but its clarity and balance still had a certain sophistication that even the MIDI synthesizers of contemporary times seemed to lack. Worse, most SoundFonts in open circulation didn't work so great with many of the classic games I wanted to use them for in the first place. So, I figured, if you want something done right...
Initially using Unison as a starting point, with the MT-32 and the soundtracks to hundreds of classic games as references, I began replacing samples, sometimes with publicly available instrument samples, other times with custom samples recorded by musician friends & acquaintances, even some by myself. Lots of effort went into fine tuning new and existing samples, correcting looping errors, making countless micro adjustments to timbre, falloff, presence, reverberation, etc. Though the finished result hardly resembled Unison any longer, I called the finished product "Unison HD", in homage to its roots.
As the UHD Soundfont still holds up pretty well today, I figured you might appreciate the way it augments your favorite games of yesteryear.
You can download it here: http://pub.dotbalm.org/misc/UHD3.7z
WHAT?
The digital equivalent of sheet music, MIDI was commonly utilized by the video games of yesterday. MIDI doesn't have any sound information in it per se, therefore the quality of the samples utilized by your MIDI synthesizer determines the quality of your MIDI sound as much as the composition itself.
To put it simply, a SoundFont is a library of instrumental sound samples, instructions and parameters which, when loaded by a compatible synthesizer (either implemented in hardware or in software), will dramatically change the sound of MIDI output. It follows that your choice of SoundFont can have a noticeable impact on your classic video game experience. Especially if you're an audiophile like me.
WHY?
By using a custom SoundFont in conjunction with one of the many software synthesizers available to your system (for most people this will be built into your favorite engine for running classic games such as DOSBox or ScummVM), you can enjoy a completely different league of music quality in your classic games.
HOW?
This depends largely on whether a particular game is being loaded through DOSBox, ScummVM, etc. Thus, I won't go into much detail here. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of tutorials on the GOG forums on how to do this in various situations, and I'm happy to help if you still have questions.
WHY NOT TIMBRES OF HEAVEN / [MY_FAVORITE_SF2_HERE]?
Timbres Of Heaven, while an overall great sounding SoundFont, is unfortunately NOT very adherent to the General MIDI convention. Some of the volumes between instrument presets are highly inconsistent, resulting in an uneven and often overpowering sound. Also, tremolo has been added to certain instruments in a manner which was not in any MIDI standard I'm aware of, and often clashes badly with many real-world examples (such as the soundtracks to many Sierra games) where the composer would have added their own tremolo in the MIDI itself. This gives me the impression it was intended more for studio use than for gaming or other standard GM playback. Timbres Of Heaven is also ~376MB in size, which must be loaded into RAM to utilize. On resource-constrained computers (or certain SF2 compatible hardware synthesizers), this isn't ideal.
In contrast, UHDv3 is just 64MB uncompressed, which fits cleanly on most older SF2-capable hardware synthesizers, and isn't too RAM hungry on resource-constrained computers either. But perhaps most importantly in the context of video games, it sticks much more closely to the Roland GM standard utilized by many classic games. I think it strikes just the right balance of consistency and quality that compliments the original compositions we all know and love.
WHEN?
Right now. Go download it if you want. Just don't distribute it commercially, please.
HISTORY
As a kid I loved video games, and had a special appreciation for their unique soundtracks. Sierra stood out especially, as perhaps the first to embrace the impressive but relatively high-dollar Roland MT-32 synth module. I wanted an MT-32 badly as a kid in the 80's and early 90's, but sadly at $700 it was far out of reach. So, like most other regular Joes, I had to suffice with PC speaker bleeps and, a bit later on, low quality OPL support via SoundBlaster.
Fast forward to the late 90's / early 2000's and the EMU10k1 had become a thing. Creative Labs released a commodity-priced sound card based on this innovative sound processor, the SB Live!, and I was fortunate enough to acquire an early model at a trade show. Among other things, the EMU10k1 supported SoundFonts natively. This gave your average audiophile access to high quality MIDI playback which was on par with pricey studio synths. Unfortunately, the best SoundFont that shipped with the SB Live! was an 8MB GM set that, while far superior to the quality most people expected from MIDI, largely failed to impress. Thankfully homebrew SoundFonts caught on in music and audiophile communities, with a slew of SF2 sound banks circulating. The one I liked best at the time was a set called "Unison".
Around the same time I'd finally acquired my longed for MT-32 for something like $45 on eBay. At that point it was over a decade old and seriously outmoded, but its clarity and balance still had a certain sophistication that even the MIDI synthesizers of contemporary times seemed to lack. Worse, most SoundFonts in open circulation didn't work so great with many of the classic games I wanted to use them for in the first place. So, I figured, if you want something done right...
Initially using Unison as a starting point, with the MT-32 and the soundtracks to hundreds of classic games as references, I began replacing samples, sometimes with publicly available instrument samples, other times with custom samples recorded by musician friends & acquaintances, even some by myself. Lots of effort went into fine tuning new and existing samples, correcting looping errors, making countless micro adjustments to timbre, falloff, presence, reverberation, etc. Though the finished result hardly resembled Unison any longer, I called the finished product "Unison HD", in homage to its roots.
As the UHD Soundfont still holds up pretty well today, I figured you might appreciate the way it augments your favorite games of yesteryear.
Post edited March 16, 2018 by cwadge
